


The Serizawa Scale

by somepallings



Category: Gojira | Godzilla (1954), Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Newton Geiszler Has ADHD, Newton Geiszler Recovery Arc, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Worried Hermann Gottlieb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 22:04:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17333195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somepallings/pseuds/somepallings
Summary: Kaiju are measured against the Serizawa Scale, but how does Newton measure himself?They watch Gojira (1954) and it helps Hermann to understand.





	The Serizawa Scale

**Author's Note:**

> My partner, CrossestMan, helped me come up with the idea for this and encouraged me to plot it out.

“Are you sure this is what you want to watch, Newton?” Hermann asked, turning the DVD box over in his hands.

“Yeah, man, absolutely! It’s- it’s a classic, it’s criminal that it didn’t make it out of Japan for like 40 years,” Newt replied, pulling an ancient DVD player covered in stickers and unidentifiable sticky patches from a box. He’d put a lot of things in storage when he’d taken the job with Shao Industries, always meaning to sort through it at some point, until thoughts like that had disappeared entirely from his head.

He reached behind Hermann’s TV and plugged in the HDMI cable. He reached out to take the box from Hermann’s uncertain hand and popped the DVD from the spindle.

“Honestly Herms, you’ll get a kick out of this,” he said reassuringly as he put the DVD into the player and fired it up, “and you’ll finally get to understand where I got the name for the Serizawa Scale from”.

“Well, if you’re sure darling. I trust your judgement, in matters of entertainment at least”. Hermann sat back and put his long legs up on the coffee table, "Anyway, I thought that was an acronym? Something about Size, Reach, Zone of attack... Width? I'm sure you explained it in an interview once".

Three Japanese characters appeared in white on a black background:

_Gojira_

"Come on babe, you should know never to believe a word I say on TV".

Hermann was worried about this, no matter what he had said to Newton. A movie about a giant monster attacking Tokyo, no matter how obscure (and weirdly prescient), that Newton had watched as a child, seemed to be an ill-omened thing. If the PPDC found out they were watching it they’d surely take a dim view, and possibly even revoke Hermann’s supervisory privileges. He knew there were some among them who scarcely trusted Hermann not to be plotting something, let alone the man who had reopened the breach and laughed about it.

Newt sat next to him on the couch and Hermann opened his arms so that Newt could nestle against him with his legs tucked up. He put his arms around Newt’s shoulder and the smaller man sighed contentedly.

It had been a good day, you see, and Hermann desperately didn’t want it spoiled. Newton had been calm and in good spirits, even. That was so rare. Being under tacit house arrest made it hard to distract Newton from the thoughts that raced through his ADHD brain, a brain so used to having project after project to work on but now was going stir crazy in this place. Getting his boxes from storage had helped a lot, though Hermann had felt honour-bound to turn over a lot of it to the PPDC for examination. They hadn’t asked for the DVDs, though.

It was quite a good film. The effects were primitive, but they looked great and the plot was engaging. Newton periodically explained how this effect was produced, how that scene was shot. Even the cheesy love triangle was charming. He caught Newton looking a little starry-eyed and nudged him.

“I think you fancy him”, he said teasingly.

Newt laughed, “What? Akihiko Hirata was hot”, he said, and elbowed Hermann in the solar plexus a little too hard.

Maybe this had been a good idea after all. The movie honestly had eerie foresight. It reminded Hermann of the things he’d heard about that book that was supposed to have predicted the sinking of the Titanic, or all the things they said on the Simpsons that came true.

No Jaegers, of course. A little hard to imagine in 1954, probably. Some ridiculous pseudoscience. Hermann was mortified at some of the so-called science coming out of those men’s mouths.

It was familiar, what was happening in the film, but also not familiar. It was like watching a representation of a story of a kaiju attack told through two generations of storyteller. It was strangely cathartic to see the destruction happening in fiction, as if such things could now be fully relegated to the world of fiction.

Newton had stopped infodumping. Hermann supposed he was waiting for his reaction and decided to be encouraging.

“The puppetry looks great”, he volunteered, “I really like the, erm, the…” he waved a hand in front of his mouth.

“Atomic breath.” Newton’s voice was flat and distant. Hermann started to worry again.

“Darling, are you sure you’re enjoying this?”

Silence. They kept watching.

Newton was definitely tense. Hermann stroked his arm. He was getting genuinely engrossed in the story.

“We could have used some of that, eh?” he said, pointing at the Oxygen Destroyer device. Newton didn’t reply, or un-tense his shoulders. Herman started to massage his arm a little harder.

The final confrontation and heroic sacrifice was affecting. Hermann blinked a little to dispel a tear, but just as he opened his mouth to thank Newton for showing him this film that was obviously important to him, he realised that the man in his lap was shaking slightly, and the arm that Newton’s head was resting on was damp. His consoling hand stopped rubbing and he squeezed Newton’s elbow.

Tears could be a good thing. Newton had gone a long time without being able to cry at all. Even with his fingers wrapped around Hermann’s neck, apologising, almost the closest he had come to breaking free on his own, the tears hadn’t come.

Hermann realised he was thinking about that moment because Newt was. Ghost drifting was no joke.

“Talk to me, Newton”, he said, sternly but kindly.

“Should have been me”. Newton choked out.

“What was that?”

“Should have died. Couldn’t even bring myself to die”.

“That would have been terrible, you know. I would have been very sad”.

“Not the point. Should have been able to do it. I could have, you know. Lots of times. At first. Later they wouldn’t let me”.

Hermann sighed and put his head back. He closed his eyes. He saw a flood of images from Newton’s mind, still slightly tainted by odd angles and strange colours, but mostly familiar. It was easy to interpret.

He saw a youthful Newton idolising the strange and serious Dr Serizawa. Young but accomplished, with a distinctive appearance. Tragic. Brilliant. But Serizawa had died. Serizawa had been able to take himself into the sea and fall on his own sword, but Newton had not. It had been so long since he had watched this strange obscure little film and he had forgotten this. He was ashamed, now, to have shown this to Hermann, and to be reacting so strongly and to be hyperidentifying so obviously with a fictional character.

Hermann tried to meet this flood of images and feelings with a flood of his own. His own desire that Newton should live, times when Hermann had cried over fictional things. Comforting thoughts. It was OK to cry. It was OK to feel. Hermann himself had had trouble with this sort of thing, but 10 years of vague yearning and unfocused sadness had softened him up considerably, and he’d had to learn fast after he became a full-time carer for someone with a severity of PTSD unlike any the world had ever seen.

“Newton,” he said aloud, “you’re not Serizawa, and you’re not Gojira either. You’re a man, and you were terribly used and now you’ve escaped, and you’re here with me now, and I’m so happy that’s true”.

Slowly but surely the crying fit passed. Newton sighed. The DVD had returned to the menu screen, and Hermann had muted it. Newt sniffed.

“Thanks,” he said in a tiny voice, “love you, Dr Gottlieb”.

Hermann smiled, and he knew Newton would hear it in his voice, “I love you too, Dr Geiszler. Now, tell me more about this atomic breath. Exactly what perversion of science is supposed to allow it to function?”

**Author's Note:**

> I figure in the Pacific Rim universe only Gojira (1954) exists, but it was never re-released in America as Godzilla: King of the Monsters, so never gained the later critical acclaim that led to all of the sequels and remakes. Maybe the House Un-American Activities Committee took a look at it and put the kibosh on the possibility of an American release.
> 
> This answers how the Serizawa Scale was named, because it's not possible for me to believe that such a name could exist without it having been bestowed by Newt, who would absolutely identify with Daisuke Serizawa, and then inevitably compare himself and fall short.
> 
> So I've written a character I hyperidentify with hyperidentifying with a character and getting embarrassed. Wheels within wheels.


End file.
